2013 to-do list

New home, new pastures, new places to ride... there's just way too much new going around to get used to!  I still need to find a good horse vet, farrier and a chiropractor (for Sunny).  T has some old friends who ride, and he's collecting recommendations - we'll see what sort of agreement there is out there. 

I'm also hoping to find someone/where to take lessons from.  I'm not too concerned about what kind, I've just grown to like the incentive of taking them.

We have fences - real fences, not just the temporary, backed up by the promise of electric shock, kind - to build, automatic waterers to put in, a barn loft to clean out now that the temps are below freezing, hopefully the legless critters are fast asleep, and lots more trees to clear out.  (And that's not even touching all of the house projects that need to be tackled or finished up.)

For today I'm keeping it simple - feed the horses, fill the water tank, feed the cats, feed the people (French onion soup and German apple cake), laundry and Christmas tear-down.

Real live horses!

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and that 2012 is off to a good start!  I spent some time with my sister and her family out east over the holidays, and had a wonderful time.  We saw some crazy decorations - only a few days before Christmas...

and these folks were still adding lights - see the ladder?  Their neighbors, and the electric company, must love them!

Out finishing up the last of my Christmas shopping I spotted this license plate.

I want one!  Vanity plates galore out there - of course it's wall to wall people, too.

Speaking of lights, is this not cool?  Unfortunately, other than the huntsman's mount, my niece's pretty ponies and her rocking horse, and the carousel we rode at the mall (and not on the horse, she likes the teacup spinner), I didn't see a single horse.

It was, however, a lovely carousel

Unfortunately, I caught the cold/flu bug going around and spent the last few days of my visit hacking, sniffing, and mainlining cold medicine.  It was a wonderful trip, but it's good to be home and finally feeling better.

While I was gone it snowed, and T got the tank heater in. The ponies are round and fully fluffed

I hopped on Sunny for my first ride of the new year - a quick 5 minute slog around the pasture - trailed by Cat 1, who doesn't mind the horses in the least.

He's determined to walk between my feet, and seemed equally intent on getting himself flattened under Sunny's.  

Not much new here, and I have yet to catch back up on my blog reading, so I'm off to do that! 

Merry Christmas!

Peach brandy soused this year

The fruitcake is out of the oven, and the stockings are hung...

With care, if not by the chimney...

Hope Christmas Eve finds you all with loved ones, family and friends you hold dear.  Whether you're making merry or yours is a peaceful silent night, Merry Christmas to you, one and all!

Cookie Jar Gingersnaps

When I was in grade school back in the not-quite-dark ages, we used to get these saucer-sized, rich-with-molasses and rolled in sugar, crackle-topped cookies every now and then for dessert with school lunch.  I loved them. They had that crunchy-stiff outer edge and a slightly chewy middle... yum. Once I learned to bake, I started looking for a recipe and this one is about the closest I've found.

It also has the benefit of being relatively quick and doesn't require a lot of complicated fiddling.  I don't make them hand-sized, because that's a LOT of cookie - and the big ones don't fit in a normal-sized coffee mug. ;-)

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Cream together

• 1/2 c. soft shortening (butter flavor Crisco works well)
• 2 c. sugar 

Beat in:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c molasses (blackstrap, or the darkest you can find unless you like a lighter cookie)

Sift together... and then add to moist ingredients and blend well:

• 4 c. flour
• 2 T. ginger
• 1/2 t. salt
• 2 t. cinnamon
• 2 1/2 t. baking powder

Roll into balls the size of a walnut.  Roll in white sugar.  Place 2 1/2" apart on parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Bake at 350' for 12-15 minutes.  Store in airtight container.  Yield: 4-5 dozen.

Molasses-y goodness

My sister always asks for these in lieu of a Christmas present; she's the sugar cookie baker in the family, so we swap! They're good right out of the oven, but the spices get stronger as they're stored - so they get better and better until they're gone - they keep well and they don't crumble when packed up and sent USPSing across country, either. 

Enjoy!!!

Weekend Update

Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps

Holiday baking has commenced.  Two Swedish Tea Rings dropped off, and the and second round of Cookie Jar Ginger Snaps are ready to go.  I love the smell of the house during the holidays.

Rolled in sugar

Hot out of the oven

We had about 1/2 an inch of rain the other night - the horses were all proper mudballs in the morning, but the ground and all the vegetation is surely happier for it.  I wouldn't have minded if it had kept up for all of the next day, too.  Unfortunately it didn't.  The horses weren't entirely pleased to be kept penned up in the corral with hay until afternoon to give the orchard pasture a chance to dry some.  Every time the house door swung open Sunny would whinny notifying us that, "Hey, you've forgotten us down here!  We want out!"


It was still damp even yesterday when I went down to snip off some more spindly trees along the orchard fenceline.  I'm making progress - I've done most of the way to the barn now, although there's still work for T to do with the chainsaw.

Cat 1 joined me to supervise, yammering away the whole time.  He's nothing if not vocal.  He's still a youngster, definitely a tom, and was likely someone's pet at some point.  He worked his way closer and closer and finally got up the courage...

Once he'd had his ears rubbed I couldn't keep him out from underfoot - I almost dropped a tree on him a couple times.  Finally the horses came over to check out what I was up to and after Sunny snuffled him over and got slobber on him and Thunder almost flattened him, he retreated under the pear tree to complain at the lot of us.

Cat 2 is still running off whenever he spots us getting closer than 20 feet or so, and there's an even shyer, big fluffy grey cat that showed up briefly over the weekend.  Finding some outside cats is not going to be a problem.... keeping track of them all, however....

I have the majority of the tub surround tiled, along with the sink backsplash.  Hopefully we'll have a working shower before company arrives for the holidays, but it still has to be grouted, so we'll see.

Last night when we went down to bring the horses in, only Amyra and Rufus appeared.  T called, I called... finally a crashing and thudding, and the errant pair trotted up over the edge of the creekbed both with grass still hanging out of their mouths.  So at least a couple of them have figured out there's edible stuff down there. 

This morning all of them but Amyra were standing in the barn when I went down to let them out, so they've figured that out, too. 

T pulled the cover off one of the old well pits yesterday so we could see how deep it is.  Fairly deep, with a bit of water in the bottom from the rain.  And it also had snakes.  T says just corn snakes. 

They eat mice and bugs and aren't poisonous.  But I still wouldn't want to run across one unexpectedly, and I sure won't be picking them up. 

They look a bit too much like rattlers at first glance.  And I'm not sure what the green one is.

And that's the news from here for the last couple of days.